In ‘Flight’, the grandfather tries to deal with the difficulty of his granddaughter leaving by appealing to his daughter. ‘“She’s the last,” he mourned. “Can’t we keep her a bit longer?”’ However, in the end he recognises the inevitability that his granddaughter is going to leave and get married. ‘His eyes stung, and he went out on to the veranda. Wet spread down over his chin and he took out a handkerchief and mopped his whole face.’ When the granddaughter realises that the old man is in distress, she feels sorry for him and to make up for it she presents him with his favourite type of bird, a pigeon. ‘On the wrist of the postmaster’s son balanced a young pigeon, the light gleaming on its breast.’
In ‘Your Shoes’ the mother tries to deal with her daughter leaving by calming herself down and pretending that her daughter is there and trying to talk to her. ‘If I wrap my arms around myself and hold tight it keeps the pain in. Stops it spilling out and making a terrible mess. If I keep my mouth pursed tight I can’t scream or throw up. If I imagine that you’re gone for good, that you’ll never come back, then this terrible wailing sound will begin and never stop, I might go mad.’ Just as in ‘Flight’, the mother tries to appeal for her daughter to come home, this time, however, through her mind.
In ‘Flight’, what I think the author wants to say is the idea about the problems of letting young people grow up and leave home. This sometimes can be quite hard for some adults just as it is for the grandfather. The story is written in third person and let us see everyone’s point of view as well as the grandfather’s. ‘“You never liked it when we married,” she said. “Why not? Every time, it’s the same. When I got married you made me feel like it was something wrong.” “You’ve said they could marry?” he said incredulously. “Yes, Dad, why not?” she said coldly.’ The way the author portrays the daughter leaving is by representing her as the grandfather’s favourite bird that he releases along with the rest of his birds. However, later the birds come back to their ‘home’ just like the daughter promised she would do after she got married.
In ‘Your Shoes’, what I think the author wants to say is basically the same idea as in ‘Flight’, about the problems of letting young people grow up and leave home. The story is written in first person because the mother is the only person speaking. Everyone else appears through her mind. This allows the author to focus on the mother and convey her feelings and increasing madness as the story unfolds. ‘It’s cosy in here. Peaceful too. I’ve unplugged the telephone so that I can concentrate on you and we shan’t be disturbed.’ The way the author portrays the daughter is by representing her as a pair of, perfect, new white trainers; what the mother would have like to see her daughter as. ‘Then on the way home I stopped the car and bought you a pair of new shoes as a surprise, really beautiful ones, the best I could afford.’
In ‘Flight’, the way the author makes me respond to this situation is eventual sympathy for the grandfather when he realises that his granddaughter is not heartless but still cares about him. ‘She was wide-eyed, and pale in the cold shadow, and he saw the tears run shivering off her face.’ In the end the old man lets go of his misery and plucks up the courage to release all his birds, including his favourite one which the author represents as his daughter. ‘It seemed to the old man that the whole afternoon had stilled to watch his gesture of self-command, that even the leaves of the trees had stopped shaking.’
In ‘Your Shoes’, the way the author makes me respond to this situation is the opposite seems to happen compared to ‘Flight’, the
Justin Liu Maine A English AXS
Flight/Your Shoes (cont…)
mother’s condition clearly gets worse and lapses into madness at the end. ‘Laces like strings of white liquorice. They taste sweet.’ Again there is the symbolism of the shoes and again it represents the way the mother would like her daughter to be.
I prefer ‘Flight’ to ‘Your Shoes’ because the story is much clearer and you get to see everyone’s point of view whereas in ‘Your Shoes’ the storyline is not so clear and harder to understand because only one person is speaking. However, ‘Flight’ has less detail than ‘Your Shoes’ because there are many more people to focus on. For example, in ‘Your Shoes’ you know who is still alive and who is not whereas in ‘Flight’ it is not as clear. However, I enjoyed both stories and thought that they had more similarities than differences.
